5th March 20186th March 2018

Delaware North and Their Apprenticeship Levy Journey

At our Apprenticeship Levy Conference back in November 2017, Alison Gray, HR Director for Delaware North discussed their Apprenticeship Levy journey so far and Apprenticeships in general over the last few years.

“All of us were just completely blown over by a lot a confusion, a lot of really bad mixed messaging. We felt really out of our depth and we felt really overwhelmed.”

“We discovered a few things that were really important for us. We needed to work out the impact of the Levy on our business, and we needed to consider the future needs of our business.”

In 2016, 3aaa and Delaware North first partnered together to build a strong plan to manage the use of Delaware’s Levy funds and to build upon a brand image on where the new, generational change in the business would go and how the Apprenticeship Levy would direct this.

Alison discussed the things that originally went wrong in their ‘pilot’ and why they went wrong, and what was required to turn confusion on the Levy into a manageable, investable project to bring a learning-culture into the company.

Subsequently, on Monday 9th October, Delaware North launched their new ‘NEXT Academy’ with an Academy Challenge, aimed at finding candidate’s suitability for enrolment into the Academy.

The ‘NEXT Academy’ was introduced as a business initiative after years of planning by the Delaware North team to ensure that there is a clear talent and succession plan within the business, allowing employees to develop and prosper within the organisation and creating momentum and the vision to introduce this effectively. Delaware North and 3aaa Apprenticeships are currently working in partnership to ensure that this is achieved, creating a flexibility that ensures that the training programmes fit the needs of Delaware North and it’s talented workforce.

Alison commented “The launch of the NEXT Academy is a very exciting moment in time for us as a business. Our industry continues to grow, offering enormous opportunities for people to have amazing careers, and yet we face a growing talent crisis. We see the Academy, partnering with 3aaa to deliver a suite of leadership programmes, as our way to invest in our people to help them bring their potential to life for individual and collective success.”

You can watch the full video here:

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